Meta analysis of GWAS datasets reveals lung cancer risk lncRNA variant

Lung cancer etiology is multifactorial, and growing evidence has indicated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are important players in lung carcinogenesis. Duke University School of Medicine researchers performed a large-scale meta-analysis of 690,564 SNPs in 15,531 autosomal lncRNAs by using datasets from six previously published genome-wide association studies (GWASs) from the Transdisciplinary Research in Cancer of the Lung (TRICL) consortium in populations of European ancestry. Previously unreported significant SNPs (P value < 1 × 10-7) were further validated in two additional independent lung cancer GWAS datasets from Harvard University and deCODE. In the final meta-analysis of all eight GWAS datasets with 17,153 cases and 239,337 controls, a novel risk SNP rs114020893 in the lncRNA NEXN-AS1 region at 1p31.1 remained statistically significant (odds ratio = 1.17; 95% confidence interval = 1.11-1.24; P = 8.31 × 10-9). In further in silico analysis, rs114020893 was predicted to change the secondary structure of the lncRNA. This finding indicates that SNP rs114020893 of NEXN-AS1 at 1p31.1 may contribute to lung cancer susceptibility.

Manhattan plot of associations between
SNPs of the lncRNA genes and risk of lung cancer

lncRNA

There were 59 SNPs with a P < 1 × 10−7.

Yuan H, Liu H, Liu Z, Owzar K, Han Y, Su L, Wei Y, Hung RJ, McLaughlin J, Brhane Y, Brennan P, Bickeboeller H, Rosenberger A, Houlston RS, Caporaso N, Landi MT, Heinrich J, Risch A, Christiani DC, Gümüş ZH, Klein RJ, Amos C, Wei Q. (2016) A Novel Genetic Variant in Long Non-coding RNA Gene NEXN-AS1 is Associated with Risk of Lung Cancer. Sci Rep 6:34234. [article]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*